"Spur of the Moment"

Anne Henderson (Diana Hyland)
gets a glimpse at her future.

“Spur of the Moment”
Season Five, Episode 141

Original Airdate: February 21, 1964

Cast:
Anne Henderson: Diana Hyland
David Mitchell: Roger Davis
Mrs. Henderson: Marsha Hunt
Mr. Henderson: Philip Ober
Robert Blake: Robert Hogan
Reynolds: Jack Raine
 
Crew:
Writer: Richard Matheson
Director: Elliot Silverstein
Producer: Burt Granet
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Walter Holscher
Film Editor: Richard Heermance
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton
Assistant Director: Charles Bonniwell, Jr.
Casting: Patricia Rose
Music: Composed by Rene Garriguenc; Conducted by Lud Gluskin
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip N. Mitchell
Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next on The Twilight Zone, the stalwart typewriter of Richard Matheson brings us a most intriguing tale of riders, pale horses, and peeks into the future. It stars Diana Hyland and it concerns itself with some very unlooked for and some unpredicted events. It’s called ‘Spur of the Moment’ and it’s recommended for those of you who’d like to take a look at the next page of the calendar before it’s time. On Twilight Zone next, ‘Spur of the Moment.’”

 

Rod Serling Opening Narration:

“This is the face of terror. Anne Marie Henderson, eighteen years of age, her young existence suddenly marred by a savage and wholly unanticipated pursuit by a strange, nightmarish figure of a woman in black, who has appeared as if from nowhere and now, at driving gallop, chases the terrified girl across the countryside, as if she means to ride her down and kill her, and then suddenly and inexplicably stops to watch in malignant silence as her prey takes flight. Miss Henderson has no idea whatever as to the motive for this pursuit. Worse, not the vaguest notion regarding the identity of her pursuer. Soon enough, she will be given the solution to this twofold mystery, but in a manner far beyond her present capacity to understand, a manner enigmatically bizarre in terms of time and space - which is to say, an answer from... the Twilight Zone.”

 

Summary:

Anne Henderson, eighteen-years-old and the sole heir to a wealthy family, steps out into a bright summer day, dressed in white, ready for an afternoon outing on her white horse. After riding for several minutes she stops at the base of a hill where a woman, dressed in black, on a black horse, appears at the top of the hill. Her voice a deafening, primal sound, she screams Anne’s name and begins frantically down the hill. Terrified, Anne races toward the safety of her home, the woman in black close behind her. As Anne arrives at her family’s sprawling estate, the woman in black stops, takes a final look at her, and retreats.

Inside, Anne collapses into her fiancé’s arms. Her mother and father rush to her aid. She tells them about being chased by the mysterious woman. She thinks the woman wanted to kill her. Her father immediately gets on the phone to the authorities. 

 

The doorbell rings. Standing at the door is a young man named David who is demanding to speak with Anne. Mr. Henderson refuses and an argument ensues. After his repeated attempts to get the young man to leave, Anne’s father reluctantly lets him speak to Anne, if only to convince him that she wants nothing to do with him. It is revealed that he and Anne have known each other their entire lives and for their entire lives they have dreamed of getting married. Anne’s father clearly disapproves and prefers her fiancé, Bob. Anne appears flustered and unsure of her preference. When she resists David’s pleading that she give him another chance, her father finally forces him to leave at gunpoint.

In the courtyard in front of the Henderson estate, the woman in black rides in and dismounts her horse. She opens the front door and steps inside. It’s Anne. But she is not the same Anne that was crying and frightened moments earlier. She is older and looks more defeated than frightened. The house feels emptier. Twenty-five years have passed since Anne was chased by the woman in black. Anne is now forty-three. She pours herself a drink and collapses into a chair. Her mother appears, telling her that an attorney has been trying to reach her. We learn that her father passed years ago and that she is in danger of losing their estate. She tells her mother that she was out riding and saw the ghost of her former self, eighteen years old. She reminds her of the day she arrived home in tears after being chased by the woman in black. She now realizes that she is the woman in black. She says she has seen her younger self several times but can never reach her. She wants to warn young Anne not to make the mistake that will ruin her life.

An angry man stumbles into the room. It’s David, Anne’s husband, drink in hand. He is older, bearded, worn. We learn that he has squandered Anne’s inheritance. Anne’s mother attempts to chastise him and he screams at her to leave. He sits close to Anne, mocking her sorrow. Childless, they have grown into desolate, joyless alcoholics who hate each other. 

 

Flashback twenty-five years. The Henderson estate. It’s the same day as before, only now it is night. Anne is at her engagement party, her father’s doing. She stands outside, alone, staring at the night sky. She looks as if she is watching her life end right in front of her.  She sees David in the distance and runs to him, leaps into his arms. He asks her to run away with him. “I love you,” he says. “Make me happy,” she says. They fall into each other’s arms.

Back in the present David is still mocking her. “I love you, Anne,” he says, laughing. “Run away with me.” She throws her drink in his face and races out of the house. She gets back on her horse and rides off. At the top of a hill she sees her eighteen-year-old self, dressed in white, on a white horse. She calls her name and begins down the hill.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“This is the face of terror. Anne Marie Mitchell, forty-three years of age, her desolate existence once more afflicted by the hope of altering her past mistake - a hope which is unfortunately doomed to disappointment. For warnings from the future to the past must be taken in the past. Today may change tomorrow, but once today is gone, tomorrow can only look back in sorrow that the warning was ignored. Said warning as of now stamped 'Not Accepted' and stored away in the dead file, in the recording office... of the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

“Spur of the Moment” marks Richard Matheson’s final episode of The Twilight Zone. Matheson wrote fourteen episodes of the show, with Rod Serling adapting two of his previously published short stories during the show’s first season. This makes him the third most credited writer on the show, after Serling and Charles Beaumont. It came as an abrupt exit from the show for Matheson, who did not intend for this to be his final script for the program. Matheson had already sold a fifth teleplay to producer Bert Granet earlier in the season. But the production of that teleplay, “The Doll,” was subsequently cancelled by Granet’s mid-season replacement, producer William Froug, who attempted to take the struggling series in a different direction. Frustrated, Matheson stopped submitting scripts to the show. Years later, he would sell “The Doll” to Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories where it would win an Emmy Award for its star, John Lithgow, and would earn Matheson a Writers Guild of America Award nomination. Matheson would continue to be involved with the franchise for the rest of his life, writing the 1983 Twilight Zone movie, having several of his works adapted for reboots of the show, appearing at conventions, writing introductions, and giving numerous interviews. His tenure on the original series, however, was over. And although he would go on to become one of the most revered writers of speculative fiction ever, The Twilight Zone would remain one of his most notable achievements.

Matheson came to The Twilight Zone a successful novelist and short story writer, having already published his novels I Am Legend (1954) and The Shrinking Man (1956), both landmark works in their respective genres. He had also already published many of the stories that would later be adapted for The Twilight Zone. While he had written a screenplay adaptation of The Shrinking Man, which won him a Hugo Award, and sold several teleplays to various series, Matheson was still relatively new to screenwriting. By the time the show ended in 1964, he was a seasoned screenwriter with numerous television and film credits, including scripting four films in director Roger Corman’s highly successful run of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. He would go on to enjoy a long career in Hollywood while still maintaining a career as a successful novelist.

The cancellation of “The Doll” was not the first time that Matheson had had a negative experience with producer William Froug. In the early years of their television careers, Matheson and Charles Beaumont would often collaborate on scripts, with the logic being that since it was a new medium to both of them, and producers in the field may not have known who they were, their combined celebrity as successful prose writers might help them with pitching scripts. As it happened, they pitched several to the ABC series Philip Marlowe, in which William Froug was a producer. While Beaumont received writing credit on a single episode (episode twelve, “The Hunger,” according to the Internet Movie Database, presumably an adaptation of his well-known short story), Matheson was unable to sell anything to the series. 

 

The main thematic element found in “Spur of the Moment” is one that is echoed in two of the other three of Matheson’s fifth season episodes, and one that is found throughout the Twilight Zone canon. Like Steel Kelly in “Steel” and Elva Keene in “Night Call,” Anne Henderson holds on to the fantasy that she can somehow change the past and that by doing so her present problems would simply disappear. She has clearly made the wrong decision in the person she chose to marry but that does not mean that marrying her first fiancé would have been the right choice either. A better choice maybe, but one that would have always felt like it was made for her. Her present day recollection of her father is, at best, a bitter one and it's presumable that she would have been resentful of him even if she had married Bob. Her tragedy is not in having made the wrong choice but in not having the option to choose her own life without having to project all of her hopes and dreams on David simply to defy her father's wishes.

The second act twist is brilliant and feels very much like a signature Matheson move. "Spur of the Moment" is a very talky script and Matheson's ability to hold the audience's attention with so much dialogue while successfully setting them up for a mid-episode reveal is an impressive balancing act. Placing the twist at such an unusual spot, instead of at the end of the episode, also gives it a shock value that it would not have had if the audience were expecting it. 

 

The flashback scene at the engagement party where Anne makes the choice to run away with David does not appear in Matheson's script. He told editor Stanley Wiater that he did not remember if it was he who wrote it or not. The rest of the episode follows Matheson's script almost exactly so this scene was likely added to fill time. Regardless of who wrote it, likely Matheson, it ends up being a very beneficial scene as it highlights Anne detachment from herself facing a life that she does not want. It also paints Anne and David with a youthful glow making them feel much more empathetic and making their fate all the more tragic. 

This is the fourth and final episode directed by Elliot Silverstein. He previously directed “The Obsolete Man” during the show’s second season and “The Passersby” and “The Trade-Ins” during its third season, all brilliantly made episodes. Silverstein worked regularly in television during the 1950s through the mid-1960s and then turned his attention mostly to feature films. His most recognized film is almost certainly the 1965 Western comedy, Cat Ballou, which earned Lee Marvin an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (two roles actually) along with another four nominations. His other films include A Man Called Horse (1970) and the 1977 vehicular possession movie, The Car. His television credits include episodes of Route 66, Naked City, Dr. Kildare, and Tales from the Crypt. 

Aside from his directorial work, Silverstein is remembered today for pushing for more editorial control for directors and was the initial person to urge the Directors Guild of America to form the Creative Rights Committee, which he was later Chairman of for almost three decades. The Committee instituted a set of regulations which assured directors input in the final cut of their work. It also guaranteed them other necessities such as a private office on set. Many of these regulations became industry standards which are still in practice today. It was Silverstein who coined the phrase “director’s cut.” He was initially inspired to take the issue to the Directors Guild after his first episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Obsolete Man,” was edited in a way that he was unhappy with. The disagreement, Silverstein later insisted, was purely a professional one and was not anything personal, which is why he agreed to return to the show the following season. 

 

All four of Silverstein’s episodes are highly atmospheric and showcase his fondness for German expressionism as well as Gothic imagery and minimalism. His episodes also have a whimsical, dreamlike quality that is immediately recognizable. This is evident from the very beginning of “Spur of the Moment” in which the young Anne Henderson sees the nightmarish image of a woman dressed in black emerge at the top of the ridge in broad daylight. The audience gets a closer look at the figure, however, via a rapid close in on the woman’s face. While Matheson liked this episode, he thought that the woman in black should be shot from far away to hide her face from the audience until it is revealed in the second act that it is, indeed, Anne. It would have been interesting to see how Silverstein would have shot this but his choice of showing a close up of younger Anne and then quickly zooming in on the woman in black, her face aged with makeup, and then immediately back to Anne is incredibly disorienting for the audience, especially so early in the episode. They register that the face is very similar but are not quite sure what they have seen or why. 

 

Diana Hyland initially found success on the Broadway stage, appearing in several high-profile productions including the original cast of Tennessee William’s Sweet Bird of Youth, directed by Elia Kazan, in 1959. She went on to become a regular presence on American television for most of her career starting in the mid-1950s until her death at the age of 41 in 1977. Today she is probably best remembered for her role in the series Peyton Place and her Emmy Award-winning role in the 1976 ABC made-for-television film The Boy in the Plastic Bubble with John Travolta.

 

Roger Davis has enjoyed a very long career as a screen actor. He is probably best remembered for his roles in the series Dark Shadows and Alias Smith and Jones. He also appeared in a segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery called “You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan” during the show’s third season. His performance here as Anne Henderson’s doomed true love, David Mitchell, is believable if a bit loud.

 

The supporting cast in this episode all give great performances. Marsha Hunt had been acting in Hollywood since the mid-1930s, mostly in supporting roles, despite her talent. She first made a name for herself as one of the Bennett sisters in the 1940 screen version of Pride and Prejudice. She also appeared in the Anthony Mann film noir, Raw Deal (1948). Other notable performances include roles in The Human Comedy (1943), The Valley of Decision (1945), and Johnny Got His Gun (1970). She was married to Robert Presnell, Jr., writer of the first season episode, “The Chaser.” 

 

Philip Ober was also a Hollywood veteran by this point, appearing in supporting roles in a handful of A-list features including From Here to Eternity (1953), North by Northwest (1959), Elmer Gantry (1960), and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). 

 

Robert Hogan enjoyed a highly prolific career as a supporting player in television for over five decades. He appeared in a segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery called “Brenda,” written by Twilight Zone director Douglas Heyes, during the show’s second season. 

Jack Raine had a very long career as an actor, mostly as a bit player, but he did occasionally enjoy larger roles in high profile films like Julius Caesar (1953) and Not as a Stranger (1955).

"Spur of the Moment" is an appropriately somber episode to mark Matheson's exit from the show. It is a highly atmospheric story, full of gorgeous imagery and mannerisms of the southern Gothic, and a heroine who is doomed to keep chasing her past presumably for the rest of her life. Multiple viewings are recommended for this one.

With a solid run of four quality episodes during The Twilight Zone's final season, Richard Matheson would leave the show on a high note. His contribution to the series is immeasurable, having giving it some of its most memorable episodes, one of which, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," went on to become one of the most well known moments of television history. Even with his numerous other achievements in film and literature, his work on The Twilight Zone would remain the project he was most known for, and would leave a lasting imprint on popular culture.

Grade: B

Acknowledgements:

The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)

The Twilight Zone Companion (3^rd ed.) by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James Press, 2018)

Richard Matheson’s The Twilight Zone Scripts (Vol. 2) edited by Stanley Wiater (Gauntlet Press, 2002)

Richard Matheson on Screen: A History of the Filmed Works by Matthew R. Bradley (McFarland and Company, 2010)

“Meet the Man Who Created the Director’s Cut,” interview with Elliot Silverstein conducted by Charles Haine, March 07, 2018; nofilmschool.com

Internet Movie Database

Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Notes: 

__Jack Raine also appeared in the season four episode “Passage on the Lady Anne.”

__Roger Davis appeared in a segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan,” during the show’s third season.

__Robert Hogan appeared in a segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “Brenda,” in the show’s second season.

__Elliot Silverstein also directed the season two episode, “The Obsolete Man,” and the season three episodes, “The Passersby” and “The Trade-Ins.”

__This episode marks René Garriguenc's last original score for the show. He also composed scores for season one's "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," season four's "Passage on the Lady Anne," and season five's "In Praise of Pip." All four of these scores were conducted by Lud Gluskin.

__Richard Matheson is the third most credited writer on The Twilight Zone, after Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont, receiving teleplay credit on a total of fourteen episodes, and story credit on two more. He also wrote two segments for the second season of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “Big Surprise” and “The Funeral.” He also wrote three of the four segments of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). He wrote an adaptation of his short story, “Button, Button,” for the first season of the 1985 revival series of The Twilight Zone but was displeased with the segment and took his name off it, using his pseudonym Logan Swanson instead. In 1994, he adapted a story outline written by Serling called, “The Theatre,” for the CBS television special, The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics.

__Matheson’s screen credits for the original Twilight Zone series:

                      Season 1:

                           “And When the Sky Was Open” (story credit)
                           “Third from the Sun” (story credit)
                           “The Last Flight”
                           “A World of Difference”
                           “A World of His Own”

                      Season 2:

                           “Nick of Time”
                           “The Invaders”

                      Season 3:

                           “Once Upon a Time”
                           “Little Girl Lost”
                           “Young Man’s Fancy”

                      Season 4:

                           “Mute”
                           “Death Ship”

                      Season 5:

                           “Steel”
                           “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”
                           “Night Call”
                           “Spur of the Moment”

__Matheson's original title for this episode was "Pale Rider."

__This episode was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama by Denis Etchison starring Sarah Wayne Callies (Falcon Picture Group, 2007).

 

Richard Matheson
(1926 - 2013)

Brian

"The Trade-Ins"

Joseph Schildkraut and Alma Platt as Mr. and Mrs. John Holt

“The Trade-Ins”

Season Three, Episode 96

Original Air Date: April 20, 1962

Cast:

John Holt: Joseph Schildkraut

Mr. Vance: Noah Keen

Marie Holt: Alma Platt

Mr. Farraday: Theodore (Ted) Marcuse

Young John Holt: Edson Stroll

Gambler #1: Terrence deMarney

Gambler #2: Billy Vincent

Receptionist: Mary McMahon

Surgeon: David Armstrong

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)

Director: Elliot Silverstein

Producer: Buck Houghton

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye

Set Decoration: Keogh Gleason

Assistant Director: E. Darrell Hallenbeck

Casting: Robert Walker

Special Makeup: William Tuttle

Editor: Bill Mosher

Sound: Franklin Milton and Bill Edmondson

Music: stock

Optical FX: Pacific Title

Rod Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes

Filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“We have a return visit next week from a most eminent performer, Joseph Schildkraut, and his vehicle is called ‘The Trade-Ins.’ It’s a story of a future society in which new bodies may be traded for old. It’s my own personal feeling that of all the various story areas we’ve tackled on The Twilight Zone, this has the most import and carries with it the most poignance. I hope you’ll be able to be with us next week.

"Here, in one cigarette, a Chesterfield, is all the flavor and taste of twenty-one of the world’s finest tobaccos, aged mild and then blended mild. The end result: tobacco too mild to filter, pleasure too good to miss. Smoke for pleasure. Smoke Chesterfield.” 

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, aging people who slowly and with trembling fingers turn the last pages of a book of life and hope against logic and the preordained that some magic printing press will add to this book another limited edition. But these two senior citizens happen to live in a time of the future where nothing is impossible, even the trading of old bodies for new. Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, in their twilight years, who are about to find that there happens to be a zone with the same name.” 

Summary:

            At an unspecified time in the future, Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, an elderly couple, arrive at the New Life Corporation, which specializes in designing young, state of the art bodies into which one’s consciousness can be placed in order to alleviate illness and extend life. After establishing that the Holts are still very much in love and that John is in near constant pain, they are given the grand tour by Mr. Vance, a salesman with the company, who shows them the many human models which they can inhabit. When the issue of cost comes up, the Holts realize they have a problem. They have only enough money to purchase one New Life body. Restricted by law and unable to extend the Holts any credit, Mr. Vance apologizes profusely but explains that there is no way both of the Holts can receive New Life bodies unless the additional money is presented at the time of purchase. Dejected, the Holts leave.

            John decides to take their life savings and attempt to double it in order to buy New Life bodies. He happens upon a poker game in the back room a bar owned by a prominent criminal, Mr. Farraday. It becomes apparent to Farraday that Holt is desperate for something and coaxes the truth out of the older man. When Farraday realizes that he is about to win the final hand of the game that will clean Holt out of all his money, he folds so that Holt can win the hand and leave with exactly the amount he brought to the game.

            The Holts return to the New Life Corporation having decided that John must go through with the operation to alleviate his terrible pain. He comes out of the operation in the body of a handsome younger man. John is ecstatic with his new body until he realizes that Marie will remain old and will be unable to share in his newfound youth and happiness. John decides to return to his old body and together, hand-in-hand, the Holts leave the New Life Corporation, determined to make the most out of their remaining time together.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“From Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet: ‘Love gives naught but itself and takes naught from itself, love possess not nor would it be possessed: For love is sufficient unto love.’ Not a lesson, just a reminder from all the sentimentalists in The Twilight Zone.” 

Commentary:

            It has been said before, most often by author Marc Scott Zicree (in his book, The Twilight Zone Companion), but it bears repeating that the writers on The Twilight Zone, all of whom were in their early to middle thirties at the time of the series, frequently wrote about aging and dying from a sympathetic and often heartbreaking perspective.

It is interesting to consider that these men, all in the prime of life, dwelt so frequently on the subject of aging and dying that each of the core writers for the series approached the material at least once. Here, Rod Serling presents perhaps his finest rumination on the subject, but he also covered similar ground in “One for the Angels” and “The Changing of the Guard.” Charles Beaumont wrote such powerful episodes on the subject as “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Passage on the Lady Anne.” George Clayton Johnson wrote perhaps the two finest examinations of the theme in “Nothing in the Dark” and “Kick the Can,” along with providing the story for the underrated fifth season episode “Ninety Years Without Slumbering.” Richard Matheson gave us “Night Call” and Earl Hamner, Jr. gave us “The Hunt” along the same lines. As evidenced from the titles listed above, the subject and theme of aging and dying resulted in some of the most haunting, beautiful, and well-regarded episodes of the series.

Perhaps it is the idea that the passage beyond life into the vast unknown is the ultimate embodiment of The Twilight Zone and the writers on the series found pliable material in the theme. Whatever the case, Rod Serling was certainly in the mood to tackle the subject head on at the end of the third season, as “The Trade-Ins” is followed closely by “The Changing of the Guard,” which closes out the season. Serling thought highly of the message behind “The Trade-Ins,” as evidenced in his preview narration, and he was clearly attempting to create the feeling of a fable or fairy tale with the episode, a futuristic story which nevertheless examined the timelessness of love and companionship. He generally succeeded in this regard though the episode comes close to becoming too sentimental at times and the reliance upon a simplistic style of story leaves some logical holes in the plot construction.

“The Trade-Ins” presents an achingly romantic and optimistic view of everything from marriage, the future, and humanity in general. An interesting aspect of Serling’s characterizations is that he wrote two of the supporting characters against type. Noah Keene, here playing the salesman Mr. Vance and last seen in the third season opener “The Arrival,” could easily have been written as an unsympathetic, pushy salesman. Serling opts to write him in a near saintly manner as a man who takes an immediate and personal interest in his clients. Vance’s role in the corporation remains unclear even by the end of the episode as it is difficult to determine if he is only a salesman or if he perhaps owns the company when considering Vance is seen as part of the operating team later in the episode.

Another supporting character who is written strongly against type is Mr. Farraday, played by Theodore Marcuse, last seen in the earlier third season episode “To Serve Man.” Farraday is clearly a criminal but is portrayed as curious, caring, and ultimately willing to make a sacrifice for the interest of the aging John Holt. Everyone in the episode seems to be on the side of the Holts and all character interaction serves to underline the idea that people are generally kind and good. Serling has occasionally been accused to having too bleak a view of humanity in such episodes as “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and “The Shelter,” but Serling understood the basic dichotomy of human nature, that the most outwardly sinister of us may in fact be a decent human being, and those seeming kind and warm may hide a darker nature. 

The character of the sick and dying John Holt is brought wonderfully and sympathetically to life by veteran actor Joseph Schildkraut, last seen in an equally powerful performance in the earlier third season episode “Deaths-Head Revisited.” Here, aged by William Tuttle’s makeup, Schildkraut provides the episode with a strikingly believable portrayal of a man not only suffering from immense chronic pain but also one terrified of facing a future without his loving wife. Unfortunately, Schildkraut’s performance was informed by the fact that he lost his wife to illness after the first day of filming “The Trade-Ins.” Schildkraut, a consummate professional from a proud acting family, insisted on finishing the episode before allowing himself to properly grieve. It is clear, however, that Schildkraut’s grief made it into his performance and rendered it that much more powerful.

Schildkraut is matched by his on-screen wife played by Alma Platt, who is largely responsible for the two most emotionally wrenching moments of the episode, the first being her chant of “yes, yes, yes,” urging Schildkraut’s character to commit to the operation in order to alleviate his pain and suffering. The second moment, of course, is when both she and Schildkraut’s character, now inhabiting the young body of actor Edson Stroll, come to the dawning realization that youth and age will forever separate them. Though Platt never appeared in another Twilight Zone she did appear in an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery titled “Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay,” based on A.E. van Vogt’s 1943 story “The Witch.”

“The Trade-Ins” is directed by Elliot Silverstein and he brings a highly artistic style of the episode. Silverstein directed three additional episodes of the series and always managed to convey a dream-like (or nightmare-like) quality in the episodes he directed. “The Trade-Ins” is visually defined by the stark contrast of light and shadow, as well as by the cavernous set design, particularly in the case of the showroom floor at the New Life Corporation. In this way, the episode resembles Silverstein’s earlier effort, “The Obsolete Man,” especially in the contrast of a large Act One set with a smaller, more intimate Act Two set. In the case of “The Trade-Ins,” Silverstein contrasts the large showroom floor with the close interior setting of Farraday’s poker game. Furthermore, the two sets offer a contrast of a different nature, this being the difference between a clean, futuristic setting and that of a traditional noir design, the latter represented by the back room poker game. This sort of contrast would soon become fashionable, seeing perhaps its most effective merging just a few years later in Godard’s 1965 film Alphaville.

 The shortcomings of the episode are generally two-fold. Continuing on from the future noir look of the episode, the story does not feel as though it is set far enough into the future, considering the type of operation offered by the New Life Corporation. We’ve talked before about how the series, though often considered science fiction, was really a fantasy series which occasionally used familiar concepts from the science fiction genre. Serling is doing this here and wisely leaves any details about how the New Life Corporation achieves its miraculous trading of bodies shrouded in ambiguity and broad dialogue.

The more egregious shortcoming which most viewers will notice is the fundamental flaw of the ending. John is given a New Life body because he is in terrible and constant pain. He needs the body or he will die very soon. It is intimated that his wife, Marie, is not in as desperate a need for a new body. At one point in the episode John suggests to Mr. Vance that he would be young enough to work again and pay for the second New Life body in installments. Why, then, cannot John continue on in his young body until he can work enough to save up the five thousand dollars required to get his wife a New Life body? As it stands, this relatively minor problem with the story hardly detracts from the effectiveness of the episode.

A final mention should be made about the excellent adaptation of “The Trade-Ins” on The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas. In the title roles are H.M. Wynant as John Holt and Peggy Weber as Marie Holt. Wynant is one of the most memorable faces from the original series of The Twilight Zone as he portrayed the stranded traveler, David Ellington, who frees the Devil in the second season episode “The Howling Man.” Peggy Weber did not appear on the original series but did appear in two episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “I’ll Never Leave You – Ever” and “The Different Ones,” the latter of which was written by Serling. Both Wynant and Weber are excellent in this story which one might believe is best suited to a visual medium, but radio drama has the appealing aspect of allowing the listener to visually build the story in their own minds. This one comes recommended.  

“The Trade-Ins” is Rod Serling’s love letter to love and marriage and to the ultimate optimistic view of fundamental human decency. Though it doesn’t quite strike the high notes of Serling’s finest episodes, it remains a moving, effective, and uplifting episode with memorable direction and outstanding performances.

Grade: B

Notes:

--Elliot Silverstein also directed “The Obsolete Man,” “The Passersby,” and “Spur of the Moment.”

--Joseph Schildkraut also appeared in the season three episode “Deaths-head Revisited.”

--Noah Keen also appeared in the season three episode “The Arrival.”

--Alma Platt also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay.”

--Theodore Marcuse also appeared in the season three episode “To Serve Man.”

--Edson Stroll also appeared in the season two episode “Eye of the Beholder.”

--David Armstrong appeared uncredited in the episodes “To Serve Man,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”

--“The Trade-Ins” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring H.M. Wynant and Peggy Webber.

--Serling misquotes Gibran in his closing narration. The line should read: “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.”

-JP

"The Passersby"

Lavinia (Joanne Linville) listens to a ballad sung by
a confederate sergeant (James Gregory)

“The Passersby”

Season Three, Episode 69

Original Air Date: October 6, 1961

Cast:

The Sergeant: James Gregory

Lavinia: Joanne Linville

Charlie: Rex Holman

The Lieutenant: David Garcia

Jud: Warren Kimberling

Abraham Lincoln: Austin Green

Wounded Soldier: Bob McCord

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)

Director: Elliot Silverstein

Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Phil Barber
Set Decoration: H. Web Arrowsmith
Assistant Director: Darrell Hallenbeck
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Bill Edmondson

Music: Fred Steiner

“And Now, Mr. Serling:”

“Next week we move back in time to April, 1865, the aftermath of the Civil War, at a strange, dusty road that leads to a most unbelievable adventure. On our show next week: ‘The Passerby.’ This one is for the Civil War buffs, the mystics among you…or any and all who would want a brief vacation…in the Twilight Zone.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“This road is the afterwards of the Civil War. It began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ended at a place called Appomattox. It’s littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams. [Enter the Sergeant who stumbles upon the home of Lavinia and sees her sitting on the porch in a rocking chair.] In just a moment, you will enter a strange province that knows neither North nor South, a place we call…the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

            April, 1865. The Civil War is over. An endless line of soldiers trudge down a long, arduous road. On this road is a Confederate Sergeant. He leg is wounded and he walks with a crutch. He carries with him a worn out guitar. Tired, he stops at the home of a young woman named Lavinia and asks her for a drink of water. She obliges and they began to talk. She tells the Sergeant that her husband, a Confederate Captain, was killed. He rests under the shade of a tree and plays his guitar awhile.

            Lavinia spots a soldier she knows on the road. She runs to him and throws her arms around him. She tells him that there were reports that he had been killed. He appears unfazed by this and continues walking. Later on, a Union Lieutenant arrives at the house. He asks for a drink of water. The Sergeant chats with him a moment and Lavinia disappears into the house. The Sergeant then recognizes the Lieutenant as the man that saved his life. Lavinia appears on the porch with a shotgun in her hand and announces that she is going to kill the Lieutenant. The Sergeant informs her that this man saved his life and pleads with her to spare his. After a struggle for the gun she fires at the Lieutenant at point blank range but does not hit him. The Sergeant then recalls an incident where he thought the Lieutenant was killed when an artillery shell exploded near him. Puzzled, the Sergeant holds a lantern up to the Lieutenant and finds that his face is horribly mangled. The Union officer thanks Lavinia for the water and rides away.

            The next day another soldier stops by the house. It’s Lavinia’s husband, Jud, whom she believed dead. She runs to him and collapses in his arms, crying. Jud tells her that he is not staying. He is to continue on the road. She begs him to stay but he insists on leaving. He tells her he believes the road will take them to the afterlife. Lavinia finally realizes what everyone else seems to know already: that she and Jud, and the Sergeant, are all dead. After Jud leaves, the Sergeant informs her that he is also leaving. Not wanting to accept her fate, she begs him to stay. She does not want to be alone. But the Sergeant bids his farewell. She is then greeted by President Abraham Lincoln, the last casualty of the Civil War, who informs her that he is the last man on the road. Not wanting to be left behind, she runs after Jud as the late president trails quietly behind her.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

            “Incident on a dirt road during the month of April, the year 1865. As we’ve already pointed out, it’s a road that won’t be found on a map. But it’s one of many that lead in and out…of the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

            “The Passersby” is the second in a handful of episodes concerning the American Civil War. Serling, who saw extensive combat as a paratrooper during World War II, had deep-seated anxieties of war and the destruction that human beings were capable of bestowing upon one another. As a fantasy program, The Twilight Zone has an unusually large number of episodes with war-time settings, most of which were penned by Serling. He had already explored the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the Season Two episode, “Back There,” and he would continue to examine the Civil War in Season Three’s “Still Valley,” his adaptation of Manly Wade Wellman’s story “The Valley Was Still.” During Season Five the show aired a French adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s famous Civil War story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” directed by Robert Enrico.

            “The Passersby” is loosely recycled from a script Serling penned for NBC’s Matinee Theatre in 1958 entitled “The Cause.” In this earlier script, set in the months after the Confederacy’s surrender in the Spring of 1865, a guitar-wielding soldier named Jud meets and falls in love with a woman from the opposing side of the war. They agree to leave the past in the past and focus on building a new life together. The woman’s loyalty is tested when a family member expresses disapproval over her relationship. In “The Passersby” Serling restructured this story, keeping the time period, setting, and various character names and combined it with a theme he had already explored several times on The Twilight Zone and would continue to do so time and time again: mistaken self-identity. In this episode the Sergeant and Lavinia are unable to grasp the fact that they are both dead even though death is literally marching in front of them. This episode shares an unmistakable likeness to “The Hitch-Hiker” and “Judgement Night” (both from Season One and both penned by Serling although the former is an adaptation). But the theme of mistaken self-identity is not limited to episodes where the protagonist is unaware the he or she is already dead. “The After Hours,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and “The Lateness of the Hour” all feature characters, usually the main character, that are unaware of or unwilling to accept their identity. It’s an effective device and one that can lend itself to a wide range of stories, both light and dark. Charles Beaumont’s episode “A Nice Place to Visit” also explores this theme as does Richard Matheson’s “A World of Difference” and his Season Four masterpiece “Death Ship.”          

         While the twist at the end of this episode isn’t really much of a surprise to anyone, except maybe Lavinia, Serling and director Elliot Silverstein focus instead on the relationship of these two strangers and the haunting imagery around them. Through well-crafted dialogue Serling explores the psychological scars of war and loss. He also touches upon the dangers of isolation and prejudice. He does this by painting a beautiful dynamic between two very broken people. A story that begins as two strangers casually getting to know one another becomes something much more compelling.

Likely realizing that the audience would foresee the ending Silverstein chooses to use this to the episode’s advantage leaving it obvious that the endless procession of soldiers marching in front of Lavinia’s home are headed to the afterlife. Excluding the Sergeant, the soldiers appear disoriented and disconnected from the world around them. They walk with an almost mindless lethargy not unlike the living dead in many zombie films. The set design, saturated in the southern gothic tradition, also suggests an afterlife setting of some kind. It is this over indulgence of haunting imagery, framing the tender relationship between Lavinia and the Sergeant, which gives this episode such an unusual atmosphere.

Serling’s major blunder in this episode is the highly unnecessary appearance of Abraham Lincoln in the final scene. By the time the late president arrives the twist has been revealed to the audience (several times) and his presence does not accomplish anything. It feels forced and gimmicky and kind of offsets the earlier discourse between the two main characters.

The lead actors take center stage in this episode and they both turn in compelling performances. James Gregory makes his second appearance on the show. His first was a brief role in the pilot episode, “Where is Everybody?” The problem with his role in “The Passersby” is a mistake in either casting or script editing. At one point in the episode Gregory implies that he was young man, a teenager perhaps, when he first left for the war only a few years before. Gregory was fifty at the time of this episode. This is a minor error but one that could easily have been avoided by omitting just one line. Joanne Linville was already a seasoned television actress, appearing mostly in smaller roles. She is convincing and authentic here as Lavinia. She presents a vulnerability that makes Lavinia’s flaws forgivable and makes her a sympathetic and even a likeable character.

While this episode is an enjoyable one, with intelligent dialogue and fine acting and direction, I find it is not one that requires more than a viewing or two. The dynamic between the two main characters is interesting and believable but there are too many gimmicks (the Union Lieutenant, Jud, Lincoln) that remove the audience from the heart of the story. Still, if you have not seen it, it is definitely worth a viewing, but it probably won’t be one that stays with you for years to come.

Grade: C

Notes:

--As mentioned, James Gregory also appeared in the pilot episode, “Where is Everybody?” He also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "Stop Killing Me."

--Elliott Silverstein also directed “The Obsolete Man,” “The Trade Ins,” and “Spur of the Moment.”

--The Passersby was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Morgan Brittany.

--Brian Durant